**4.1 Pre-school setting**

Children spend 28 to 40 hours a week and consume three quarters of their daily nutritional needs at a preschool, therefore, pre-schools become an important environment to promote healthy lifestyles including eating healthy foods and exercising [31]. The pre-school caregivers prepare food for children and impact their nutritional conditions, laying the foundations for accurate knowledge of healthy food, positive attitudes to food, and a healthy lifestyle [24]. Preschools should provide nutritious meals to children to promote their health and physical well-being.

**Figure 1.** *South African based childhood obesity prevention programme for children 2–5 years.*

Addressing overweight and obesity among children below the age of 5 years is very important for the prevention of NCDs [33].
